Barrington’s Leonard makes cut with USC

Before Tommy Leonard started selling himself to Division I college volleyball programs he needed help convincing himself to give the sport another shot.

Leonard was cut from his seventh-grade boys volleyball team. He didn’t try out as an eighth grader and wasn’t going to as a freshman at Barrington.

“I was convinced I wasn’t going to do it,” Leonard said.

Fortunately for Leonard, there were people who persuaded him to give it another try. He made the team, joined the varsity as a sophomore and then made the Daily Herald All-Area team last season.

So, that made it a really big deal when the 6-foot-8 senior middle blocker signed a letter of intent two weeks ago with the University of Southern California.

After all, the four-time NCAA champions don’t exactly need to be venturing from their comfortable climate to the chilly Midwest in search of talented players. Especiallly for a player whose path in the sport wouldn’t be considered a day at the beach.

“The majority of their kids are from California,” Leonard said of a program that finished second in the country in 2009 and was ranked No. 1 most of last season before falling in the national semifinals, “so it’s special that I had the opportunity to go there and I’m someone they’re interested in. It’s really cool.”

Which included the chance to do cool things on visits to California, which aren’t readily available around here in the fall, such as play beach volleyball and give surfing a try.

Leonard said UCLA, Cal-Irvine and Penn State were his other top options but the program, campus size and quality of the business school swayed him to USC.

“USC was the best option for me,” said Leonard, who has a 3.3 grade-point average on a 4.0 scale and scored 28 on the ACT.

Volleyball wouldn’t have been seemed to be much of an option just a few years ago. Leonard concentrated more on basketball growing up — which his dad Bryan played at Illinois — but said he didn’t have the same passion for it as volleyball.

Tommy Leonard had the height for the sport as well as the tallest kid in his class. But it didn’t add up to a spot on his middle school team.

“To be honest, I was embarrassed I didn’t make it,” Leonard said. “It wasn’t a good feeling. I tried to brush it off like it didn’t matter and I wanted to try out (in eighth grade) but I was scared.”

Some of that fear was still there when Leonard got to Barrington. Chris Bronke, who was the head coach at the time, regularly asked Leonard to try out.

His mom Belinda, his dad and his best friend Chris Towne, who plays hockey, also pushed Leonard to give it another try.

“Luckily I listened to all of them,” he said. “It was one of the most important decisions I’ve made.

“My freshman year my coaches were dedicated to me and helped me out. I was terrible the first couple of weeks but they could dedicate the time to make me better.”

Leonard joined a club volleyball team the summer after his freshman year and felt everything falling into place physically and mentally during his sophomore season on the Barrington varsity. That’s when he started to think about possibly playing in college.

As soon as he was able to under NCAA rules, Leonard started sending out emails to schools all over the country to generate interest. On a trip to California he had the opportunity to personally meet with coaches.

And at a junior national tournament this summer in Minneapolis, it didn’t hurt Leonard one bit that he played well against a club team run by USC head coach Bill Ferguson.

“When I first started out (with recruiting) I really had no idea,” Leonard said of going to USC. “Their conference (Mountain Pacific Sports Federation), those are top-tier teams.

“They play intense matches every single night. I knew it would be a lot harder to do. I tried and got in there and hoped for the best.”

Now Leonard is part of a six-player recruiting class, with four from California and another from Wisconsin, looking to help USC maintain its volleyball tradition.

“Tommy has the ability to compete early for a starting job,” Ferguson said in a news release about the signings. “He will solidify our middle blocker corps in the immediate future.”

A future few could have envisioned when Leonard got to Barrington.

“It’s definitely motivation to work as hard as I can,” Leonard said. “I’ll put in the extra hours if I need to because I want to be the best and I want to solidify my spot at USC.

“I use that as motivation to work even harder. I want to be on a national championship team at USC.”

mmaciaszek@dailyherald.com